PEETAH & UNA CONVERSE WITH CLASH.COM

“This album is called ‘Strictly
Roots’. Can you break down what that is all about?

Peetah: First and foremost it’s
about the music but it’s more than just about the music. When we say “strictly
roots” we talking about everything in existence, ’cause no matter what it is
who it is where it’s from, everything comes from something, everything has a
roots. So with everything we do we deal with the roots of all things.

So we say “strictly roots” is our
motto, you know what I mean? Because if you can deal with the root of something
you understand how it reach where it reach and you will understand where it’s
going to go. But you cyan’t have trees and branches and leaves and all these
things and fruits without the root. So we say “strictly roots” you know?

Talking about roots, everyone in
Jamaica is talking about this roots reggae revival. That’s kind of debatable
because roots never really went away, but let’s say for argument sakes there is
a roots revival why do you think that’s the case?

Peetah: Let me tell you something.
The whole term came from Jamaica and all those who follow and promote what
comes out of Jamaica. We all know everything out of Jamaica for the past ten
years from Vybz Kartel to the Alliance thing has all been about dancehall
music. Vybz Kartel is in prison and he’s still… if not the number one dancehall
artist in the world, at least he’s in the top five. And the man is not even on
the streets – he’s in prison.

So in Jamaica now you have artists like Protoje,
Chronixx, Kabaka Pyramid, and the whole movement of these young artists come
out, it seems like Jamaica is returning to identify what we created, which is
reggae music. They say “Oh it’s a roots revival, reggae revival.” But the rest
of the world never let go of reggae music. So this has no bearing on the rest
of the world. It’s just a media thing you all promote and it take